How does the minimum % charge impact overall charging?

Hi ​@Celadoor ,

IIRC the system will ALWAYS Smart Charge at the reduced rate unless you explicitly override with the Boost/Urgent Charge button. OVO will cover you in the situation you described by using your allowance first.

Thanks for this.  I still wonder what effect the minimum % that you set in the app is? I understand the point of the Maximum.  I set my Max to say 80%.  I set my schedule to 7am, now it will find the greenest time to charge, while still getting me to 80% on time.  But what does the minimum do?  

In the scenario I described above, would it immediately charge to 30% at 4pm, during the most non-green-time, but take those kwh’s from my monthly allowance?  because if that’s true.  Then if i set my minimum to 90% - then whenever I plug it in, it would charge to 90%, no matter what time of the day or night, and still only use my allowance - which seems kinda pointless - because it means I can “urgent” charge without using the “urgent charge” button - and without the downside.  

Sorry if I’m being dense and missing something obvious 

You’re actually in luck, I’ve just checked with the team.

The minimum charge setting (where it exists) basically just specifies what the lowest charge level you want to accept by the Ready Time should be. It’s optional and you can leave it alone if you want.

However, using it will still trigger Smart Charging and get the CA rate and/or use your allowances first - it doesn’t let you cheat the system so you don’t need to worry.

Thanks for this, appreciate the definitive answer! 

Sorry, I do have a follow up, but appreciate that i’m being a pest now :D  If Minimum is the lowest you want to accept by ready time.  And Maximum is what you really want it to be.  I don’t really understand how you could have a case where your car only charges to your Minimum and then stops. What situation would prompt that?

e.g. I set my min to 60% and my max to 90% and ready time to 7am.  In what situation would it *only* charge to 60% and not 90%?  wouldn’t it always (assuming enough time) charge to my max?  And if there is some situation where it only reached my minimum, what would have happened in that same situation if I travelled back in time, and set the Minimum to 90% instead of 60%?  Would it have hit 90%? 

The only cases where it won’t get even close to max are if you basically set impossible targets like go from 0-100% in the next five minutes. :)

So if I want to guarantee my car will actually get to 80%, I need to set both the maximum and minimum to 80%?  Last night I set the car to charge at about 4pm, it was at 18%, minimum set to 20% and maximum 80% with a ready time of 7am.  This morning it was at 66% - so it’s not got close to 80%, but that seems to be because the minimum was set at 20%.  If I’m reading the posts above correctly, there is no downside to setting both values to the charge I actually want?

Nope, you should set the minimum to something like 20-30% and max to 80%. From there, simply plug in and allow a reasonable amount of time for the system to get a charge in. Do NOT set both the same!

If you think something isn’t working, give the team a call on 0330 175 9678 and they can dig the logs.

Thanks, that’s helpful, but how does that align with your comment above:

“The minimum charge setting (where it exists) basically just specifies what the lowest charge level you want to accept by the Ready Time should be.”

The minimum I want is not 20-30% - it’s 70-80%.